After studying agriculture at college, Tony travelled to New Zealand for five years, to buy and rear his first herd of cows. It was here that he first got interested in deer farming.
“When I was there, deer farming was just starting to take off, and I thought it was really interesting. Quite a few farmers near me started up with a few deer, and then it just exploded. There’s over a million deer being farmed in New Zealand now; it’s a big industry there.”
Tony returned to the UK with his wife, Julia, and set up his own deer farm in 1984. Today, they run the farm with the help of their son, Andrew.
Deer farming is like working with other livestock in some ways – but in other ways, very different. “You’re dealing with a semi-wild animal, so they like to have a semi-wild environment,” says Tony. “We’ve got lots of small woods to go in for cover, and there’s streams and ponds…”
Environment is particularly important at calving time, as the deer won’t calve if they don’t feel safe: “They must have some rough ground at calving time, so we have banks with bracken, and we don’t cut down our nettles, because that’s where they’ll hide their calves,” Tony says. “That’s what’s really important, and a bit different to other animals.”
The deer live in small groups (called ‘mobs’) to birth and rear their calves – the smaller the better, to imitate the small mobs they’d live in in the wild. Each mob is given their own area of land to roam, so they have enough space and resources.
“In terms of feeding them, we encourage these very clover-rich leys,” says Tony. “Clover produces nitrogen, which is fantastic for their growth. They won’t fatten up if they’re on rubbishy old grass. It’s the same with silage; we make the very best silage from our very best fields for them to eat.”
Tony first went organic in 2008, when Riverford approached him to supply us with organic venison. “I’ve always been keen to be organic,” he says. “Really, it’s going back to good quality, traditional farming, without chemicals. We’re growing just as much grass as we ever did with chemicals now, because we’ve built the soil fertility up. We use organic chicken muck, and we compost that properly, so you’ve got this really good stuff to put on your land.”
“I’m sure the deer are better for it as well. We get a better quality animal, for various reasons. And they’re certainly healthy.” They even have one deer who has been with them for 32 years! “She might even be a British record for her age,” Tony says. “She was born on the farm, and we’ve had her ever since.”
Overall, the trick is just enough management, but not too much – a careful balance. “Lots of people think if you go into deer, it’s all going to be nice and easy,” says Tony. “You just stick them on the hillside and forget about them. But they certainly won’t do like that. People forget, in the wild they’re unrestricted, so they can find the best food for themselves – especially stealing from fields of turnips and swedes!”
“We try to keep that semi-wild instinct in them, so the more you leave them alone, the better. But you’ve got to manage them pretty carefully up to calving, to make sure they’re in good condition, so you don’t get calving problems. It takes some skill to get it right.” The resulting meat is lean, rich in nutrients, and really tasty – something that more people have been catching on to in recent years. Tony has even bought extra land and doubled the size of his herd to keep up with rising demand.
“It is a more sustainable meat,” he explains. “And people don’t realise, but our body is designed to eat venison! For 99% of the time we’ve been on this planet, that’s what we’ve survived on. Venison has by far the highest iron content of any red meat, lots of omega 3, and it’s very high in protein – without having all the fat, which we don’t actually need. It’s extremely good, very tender… And it’s certainly getting more popular, there’s no doubt about that.”
